


Children Waiting For the Day They Feel Good (Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday)

by KokoroJunnayai



Category: Charmed
Genre: Chris's death, Gen, On his birthday, a bit of character study, awful birthdays, but not hopeless, not a fluffy fic, sort of a tag to 6x23
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-16 01:14:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3468929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KokoroJunnayai/pseuds/KokoroJunnayai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They don't celebrate his birthday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Children Waiting For the Day They Feel Good (Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday)

**Author's Note:**

> Warning - Character death. Also, completely unbeta'd.

_"And I find it kind of funny_  
_I find it kind of sad_  
_The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had_  
_I find it hard to tell you,_  
_I find it hard to take_  
_When people run in circles it's a very, very_  
_Mad world_."

\- 'Mad World' by Gary Jules

 

 

 

They don't celebrate his birthday.

He doesn't expect them to, not with everything else going on, and isn't a petty enough person to hold it against them. He doesn't even hold it against Wyatt, even though _he's_ the whole reason they're pushing him to the side. Even though he's always the reason.

But a small, childlike voice inside Chris still cries that he's being _born_ , dammit, and that deserves _some_ celebration.

 

Truthfully?

 

Sometimes he feels like all he's ever been is an accident. In his timeline, the Original one, his parents hadn't planned on having him. Piper had insisted that it had been a 'wonderful surprise', but he'd been a surprise nonetheless. They had never _expected_ him. Never necessarily _wanted_ him.

And in this timeline he almost hadn't been anything at all – it was only due to a Darklighter's scheme and luck, or Fate or whatever, that he'd been conceived.

 

Piper had never looked at Leo and said, “I want another baby.”

Leo had never smiled back at Piper and said, “Let's have one.”

 

Neither of them, in _any_ timeline, had specifically, definitely, completely _wanted_ to have him. He knows that, he _knows_ that, and sometimes it hurts.

Chris Perry is the accident, the after-thought, the one everybody forgets. He always has been.

 

Wyatt was planned – Chris knows that. He'd heard his mother tell stories about how she almost couldn't have any children, even though she and Leo desperately wanted one, even though they'd both planned on having one.

Then an Angel of friggin' Destiny stepped down to tell her she _would_ have one.

Then there was this huge prophecy about it. Then magic actually _stopped_ to see Wyatt's birth.

Wyatt was planned. Wanted. _Expected_. By an entire magical community, no less.

 

And Chris is still the one nobody remembers.

 

But he can't muster up any real hatred over the fact that his day of birth will be all about Wyatt. He's come too far in his mission to be sidetracked by childhood dreams and insecurities.

Wyatt is...important. Important to Chris just as much as the Twice Blessed is to the Future. What needs to be done will ensure that they _can_ celebrate his birthday, the whole family, and hopefully will for more than just fourteen years.

 

So Wyatt comes first, as he always has, and that's okay. Chris has known that for years; he's had plenty of practice dealing with it.

He's already spent months, years of his life doing this for Wyatt; he'd poured over dusty scrolls and burned tomes until his head ached and his eyes blurred; he'd threatened the right people, twisted the right ear and killed the right creatures for his brother's sake, even if the fact that they weren't all demons made his chest ache.

 

He has forgone _life_ for Wyatt, essentially.

 

He hasn't had any other goal or dream besides saving his brother since he was sixteen, hasn't really thought of the future much at all, even when he was asking Bianca to be a part of it.

Chris could list on one hand the things he's done in the past that weren't strictly related to his mission or Wyatt. Most of them had been Piper twisting his arm to do it.

 

Clarence had advised him to live, but he hasn't. Hasn't lived for anyone but other people for a long, long time.

 

Finally, on the day that he's gonna be born, he realizes this.

 

It's kinda shameful, actually.

It feels like failure.

He hasn't _lived_.

 

 

He hasn't gone to the park or listened to the birds or tried a new food he's never tasted before. He hasn't spent time with Piper, hasn't told her he knows how to cook, hasn't wasted an afternoon away baking together with her, like they did when he was little.

He hasn't told Phoebe that she's a wonderful advice columnist despite what she fears, hasn't mentioned all the times she's helped ( _will_ help) him over the years.

He hasn't told Paige that she's his favorite aunt, that for all her snark and rough edges she will spoil him rotten in the future and he will love her for it.

Hasn't told Leo, 'I forgive you', but doesn't think that one counts since he probably never will. He hasn't said, 'I'm giving you another chance', either, though, and wonders if Leo needs to hear it.

 

Chris hasn't done so many things that suddenly he is overwhelmed by unfulfilled potential and is drowning in _what ifs_. He friggin' traveled back in time and he did all of _one thing_ – work to save his brother. He could've fixed so many other things, he could've...yet he didn't.

But maybe that's okay. Perhaps that one thing will be enough.

He's about to be born, right? In a few hours, Piper is going to give birth to a little boy and that kid can be whoever he wants.

Sure, he'll still be Chris, but maybe he can be a better one. Maybe he can _live_.

 

That is certainly something worth celebrating, he thinks. A new life, in any shape or form.

 

But his old life is quick to catch up to him and his musings, and he's stuck being one-mission Chris again. Things happen and events go awry, as they are wont to do.

Birthdays and celebrations and new life become surprisingly forgettable as his Fixed Futures slips like sand through his fingers.

 

One second everything is fine and the next he has lost everything he's worked so hard for.

 

  
_This_ is why he hasn't lived, he remembers. Other things get in the way.

 

 

 

Gideon finally peels his mask off to reveal fear and corruption underneath. Nothing is as it seems when he continues to enact scheme after dangerous scheme.

The world changes, shifts, but not in the way Chris wanted, and things go sideways.

 

Everything gets messy. Everyone is clouded with uncertainty and terror and a stubborn _need_ to fix something that seems determined to happen. Fate closes in like a hungry predator, its jaws open, ready to pounce.

 

For a little bit, Chris himself completely forgets about his birthday. In protecting Wyatt, he forgets about his new found vigor to live.

 

Gideon is kind enough to remind him.

 

Then there's only the pain.

 

He knows the pain of living so well he could paint a detailed mural of it, splash the angry red color of it over canvas after canvas. It's agony and it's _creative_ – each day, there are new tortures and falls and bruises, and even old fears can show up in different ways.

But the pain of living doesn't compare to the pain of dying. Not one ounce of it.

 

For one thing it stretches.

 

It lasts longer and feels like it's eating him alive, as Chris lays there.

 

Each second is too long and too slow – and stuffed so full of blood and rippling, burning hurt – and he can't breathe, oh God, he can't _breathe_...

He can't _stand_ suffering through it knowing that with each breath, he's taking one more step away from life.

With each strangled, choking gasp, he's approaching death.

 

It feels like he's tightening his own noose around his neck.

 

 

 

Someone (he can't recall who with the flames scorching his body) has burnt a hole straight through his midsection, has carved out his stomach and bled out everything inside. What could they have hoped to find? He wonders.

 

 

Once, he manages to bring a shaking hand to his face and is surprised to see red on it. He thought it would be dark and blue and cold – the color of anguish.

 

It fades, though. Everything fades. The walls and ceiling turn a faint, tinted color as though he's wearing sunglasses, and his limbs start to go numb and feel far, far away.

 

The pain of living _finally_ dims and in the oncoming glow of death, Chris feels....peace, maybe.

Something like it. Something less than before; something okay with what will happen.

 

 

He can't move his toes anymore, but he has enough clarity to think. That will have to do.

 

He remembers that it's his birthday – realizes that he's forgotten it twice now and wishes he had the energy to laugh.

He wonders if he – _him,_ not the little-guy!him, not some alternate version – if _he_ , Chris Perry Halliwell, who has traveled back and maybe will die to save his brother, would've lived if he had the chance.

He likes to think so, but maybe he's lying to himself. 

 

 

Chris wonders what he might have done, who he might've loved, and what regrets he wouldn't be musing on now. _What if, what if, what if..._

He wishes he had lived. He really, _really_ wishes...

 

Distantly, someone is crying; soft, heartbreaking noises that are muffled by someone's attempts to stifle them.

 

He thinks maybe it's him.

 

Why shouldn't he be crying? He thinks bitterly, perhaps imagining the taste of salt on his lips. He has spent years of his life trying to fix _one thing_ and that very _one thing_ is happening while he's powerless to stop it.

His entire life goal was in reach and now it's in tattered shreds on the ground.

Not to mention his family is splintered – some incapacitated, some under a spell, some just as helpless as he. In some way they have all left him, just like they did before.

 

And he's dying on his birthday.

 

Chris doesn't want to die on his birthday. He doesn't want to die at all.

 

He wonders if it would be any better to be surrounded by family, every last member close and comforting, rather than to die alone and afraid. Perhaps?

Everyone dies alone anyway, though.

 

 

“Chris!”

 

There's a voice coming from far away.

 

“Hold on, I'm here, okay?”

 

It sounds like someone's trying to talk to him through a quiet cellphone, or from across a long room.

 

A familiar face swims above him, features he so associates with cold and cruelty crinkled with pain and heartbreak.

 

He's never seen Leo look so...fatherly. Like the man really _loves_ him, like he's really upset, and would do anything in the world to ease Chris's suffering. Maybe it's not Leo after all.

But those bright eyes, so green and expectant, are Leo's. It couldn't be anyone else.

 

“I'm here now, so hold on, okay?” Leo...no, _Dad_ begs. “Please just...hold on.”

 

Chris tries his best to nod at his father, even though he can't feel if it works.

 

A morbid part of him thinks that this isn't a bad birthday present, his father crying over him like he loves him.

It certainly beats all the cards the man sent on all his other birthdays.

 

But this is, without a doubt, the worst birthday he's ever had. _Will_ ever have, he corrects himself. _Will_ ever...

Oh, God, he doesn't want to die. He doesn't, he really really doesn't – not even to see his Dad cry.

 

From miles, ages, a life time away, the voice is speaking to him again.

 

“Don't give up.” Dad tells him, pleads with him.

 

Chris wishes he had the energy and the time to cry, to bury his head in Dad's shoulder and let every tear, every lonely moment he's ever had, out.

It's not fair.

There is no part of Chris that _wants_ to give up. He's a freakin' Halliwell – they don't even know what that means!

He has just as much stubbornness in his veins as he does blood. He physically _can't_ give up.

 

Well, not until recently.

 

And Chris knows that 'not giving up' isn't the same as 'never losing a fight', because while he's done plenty of the former, he hasn't so much done the latter.

 Not giving up doesn't mean you'll ever win. Not giving up doesn't mean you won't still die.

 

But he tries to smile at his father, tries to tell him that he would _never_ give up, wouldn't even think of it, even if it can't help him now.

“You either.” Someone sounding like him whispers. He hopes it's him.

 

 

Chris doesn't think he's breathing anymore. Can't feel his own heartbeat.

 

 

Faint, barely audible sounds are echoing and dying out around him. They are fading out like the last notes of a song and he wonders if that should be sad.

 

His eyes slip closed.

 

Darkness creeps in, slow and gentle, and nothingness claims his body.

 

There is no feeling, no sensation, no smell or sound around him. There is only peace. 

 

Somewhere, a baby is crying.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Title taken from Gary Jules' (originally Tears for Fears') 'Mad World', which I do own. I hope it fit. :)
> 
> I'm fully aware that not everything in this fic lines up perfectly with 'It's a Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad World', but um...can I claim artistic license? Heheh...
> 
> And yeah, there are probably a lot of 'Chris's death from his POV' fics out there already, but this came out more as a character study.  
> Hopefully it's not too bad. 
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks for reading, please leave me a comment! ^^


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